Azla Vegan is honored to host The Art of Independent Cinema, a community based filmmaking workshop led by award winning Ethiopian writer, producer and director Haile Gerima.  The workshop will provide a rare opportunity for Professor Gerima to share his vast experience as an independent trailblazer to filmmakers based in Los Angeles. 

The workshop will focus on the idea of honoring one's accent in both the technical and creative aspects of the filmmaking process. Professor Gerima will share tools to further develop a culture of innovative cinema as a counter to imitative cinema.  Great emphasis will be placed on the value of empowering the individual filmmaker to tell stories that stem from one's particular cultural identity.  

"First, study where you come from. Accept who you are. It’s normal to think different from the mainstream colonial mode of thinking. And you don’t come to cinema empty-vesseled. You come by genomics, you have many rhythms and things that are put in the vibrations of your mother’s placenta." Haile Gerima

Click here to sign up for the workshop.